ce at sunset; we saw them dart beneath our boat
in the early morning; but not until a driving snowstorm set in, about
noon of the second day, did we succeed in persuading any of them to take
the fly. Then they rose, for a couple of hours, with amiable perversity.
I caught five, weighing between two and four pounds each, and stopped
because my hands were so numb that I could cast no longer.

Now for a long tramp over the hills and home. Yes, home; for yonder in
the white house at Drivstuen, with fuchsias and geraniums blooming in
the windows, and a pretty, friendly Norse girl to keep her company, my
lady is waiting for me. See, she comes running out to the door, in the
gathering dusk, with a red flower in her hair, and hails me with the
fisherman's greeting. WHAT LUCK?

Well, THIS luck, at all events! I can show you a few good fish, and sit
down with you to a supper of reindeer-venison and a quiet evening of
music and talk.

Shall I forget thee, hospitable Stuefloten, dearest to our memory of all
the rustic stations in Norway? There are no stars beside thy name in the
pages of Baedeker. But in the book of our hearts a whole constellation
is thine.

The long, low, white farmhouse stands on a green hill at the head of
the Romsdal. A flourishing crop of grass and flowers grows on the
stable-roof, and there is a little belfry with a big bell to call the
labourers home from the fields. In the corner of the living-room of the
old house there is a broad fireplace built across the angle. Curious
cupboards are tucked away everywhere. The long table in the dining-room
groans thrice a day with generous fare. There are as many kinds of hot
bread as in a Virginia country-house; the cream is thick enough to
make a spoon stand up in amazement; once, at dinner, we sat embarrassed
before six different varieties of pudding.

In the evening, when the saffron light is beginning to fade, we go out
and walk in the road before the house, looking down the long mystical
vale of the Rauma, or up to the purple western hills from which the
clear streams of the Ulvaa flow to meet us.

Above Stuefloten the Rauma lingers and meanders through a smoother and
more open valley, with broad beds of gravel and flowery meadows. Here
the trout and grayling grow fat and lusty, and here we angle for them,
day after day, in water so crystalline that when one steps into the
stream one hardly knows whether to expect a depth of six inches or six
feet.

Ti